Part 12 (1/2)

'Yes.'

I fetched the other blanket from the wardrobe and spread it over you. When I had done that, I folded my arms and said, 'I have no intention of becoming some kind of nursemaid, you know.'

Your head moved slowly from side to side and you said, 'I don't need anything.' Your voice was very weak. I had to strain to hear the words. There was something cheeky, eleven letters: impertinent about the way you said you didn't need anything. A kind of smugness. I looked at you. Under the blankets you looked more like a normal sick person.

I removed the blankets.

'In that case you won't be needing these either.'

I carefully folded the blankets and put them back in the wardrobe. You didn't object. When I turned back to face you again, everything was as it should be. Your naked, shaved body stretched out on the bed, just the way I wanted it. Perhaps by way of apology I said it again: 'You can't be cold. You're dead.'

'I understand.'

'What do you understand?'

'Nothing.'

'Come on, tell me. I'm curious about what you understand when you're dead.'

You didn't reply. I gave your shoulder a push, just a little one.

'Tell me.'

No reply. Your eyelids were closed once more. I sat beside you for a while longer. You were so beautiful to look at. It wasn't the time for any more confessions. When I got up to leave, you said something I didn't hear, so I bent down and put my ear close to your mouth.

'What did you say?'

The lips parted. I was aware of a faint aroma of something like frozen berries. You said, 'I don't want you to come here anymore.'

I straightened up.

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'But that's not actually your decision to make.'

Your face was so rigid that it was impossible to pick up any kind of reaction. I waited a few seconds for a futile protest. When it didn't come, I left the house for that day.

From now on I am going to omit all my reaction and speculation on the fact that a dead man was talking to me. Of course I turned the problem over in my head, many many times. You weren't really dead (of course you were dead. You had spent at least six days lying in a room where the temperature was below freezing), I was mad (I wasn't mad, there was nothing in my behaviour to suggest that I was mad), I was imagining the whole thing, and so on and so on.

But it was a fact. From now on we will take that as read.

When I got home, earlier than usual despite the hour I had spent searching the house, I was disappointed. Sad. In spite of my hard att.i.tude, your last remark had hurt me. I cried for a while. Then I tried to do some work on a crossword. I had a deadline to meet. It didn't go well, so I sent an old one from Hemmets Journal to Allers, and vice versa. The one for Kamratposten wasn't so urgent.

I knew it wasn't a good thing to do. The crosswords I sent were no more than four years old. The editor wouldn't notice a thing, but I could guarantee some old bag in Smland or somewhere like that would complain. People with photographic memories enjoy doing crosswords, or so I've heard.

Your body was all I could see during the hour I spent sitting at the computer, trying to come up with new combinations of words, witty little secondary meanings. Only your body, your perfect face. You no longer belonged to me. You had taken yourself away from me.

What right did you have to do that?

Yes, the disappointment slowly changed to anger. Anger because I wasn't good enough for you. Because you preferred to lie dead and alone in that bare room rather than to have me by your side. My secrets and my musings on life weren't good enough for you, Svensson.

My anger spilled out onto the family, I must admit. Not in the form of outbursts of rage, but rather a simmering discontent, a constant state of irritability. I could be forgiven to some extent because my period was due. That was what La.s.se thought, anyway.

I was perfectly clear about one thing: I would never, ever tell anyone about you. You might well have distanced yourself from me, but you were still my secret, and mine alone.

The following morning I put some make-up on. Oh, it makes my cheeks flame as I tell you this, but I don't want to hide anything. I put some make-up on, made myself look good. The biggest problem with my face is that it's so flat. My nose is small, with a slight downturn, my lips are thin. The s.p.a.ce between my eyes and eyebrows is shallow. My eyes are almost completely devoid of any oval shaping which, combined with the shallowness of the socket, means that they have no depth. And the colour is a watery blue, on top of everything else.

But the value of make-up cannot be overestimated, if it's done properly. I brought out my cheekbones with blusher, deepened my eyes with shadow and kohl, made my lips look fuller with a lip pencil and lipstick. Covered the spots on my forehead with foundation. I'm not claiming to be some kind of expert but what I do, I do well.

If I were to make an objective a.s.sessment, I would say that the make-up made me look twice as good or half as ugly.

I set off.

Halfway to your house I took out my pocket mirror and checked one last time, touched up my lipstick. What was I trying to achieve? I don't know. Not exactly. If I say it was an attempt to make the situation more sacred it sounds as though I'm dressing things up, nine letters: euphemism, but I think that's the closest thing to the truth. Like wearing a white blouse to church, making sure the back of your neck is clean.

The first thing I noticed when I got inside was that the bedroom door was open. I had left it closed, but not locked. When I looked in you were lying on the bed with both blankets over you. I took a walk around the house, and you didn't seem to have done anything.

Hang on a minute. Of course.

The saltcellar was upright.

I laughed out loud when I thought about how the dead rise from their graves to avenge an injustice, to put right something that was wrong when they died. So this was your motivation, the thing you needed to put right: a saltcellar. For the first time I thought you might just be the corpse of a pretty pathetic person.

Your eyes were closed, as before. I sat down at the side of your bed.

'So you've been up and about,' I said.

After a minute with no response, I got up and removed the blankets. You made a movement with your arm as if to stop me, but it was slow and weak. I bundled up the blankets and chucked them in the wardrobe.

Then you opened your eyes. A little more than the previous day. I could see a glimpse of something not unlike a jellyfish that had been washed ash.o.r.e beneath your eyelids. Dried slime.

'You've got make-up on,' you said.

'Yes,' I said. 'I've got make-up on.'

'Why?'

'Because I felt like it, that's all.'

A twitch of the mouth. I didn't like that twitch; it made your face change.

'Share the joke,' I said.

's.h.i.+t is s.h.i.+t and snuff is snuff, in golden tins as well.'

I waited. The long sentence had clearly taken it out of you, because it was quite a while before you finished off with, 'An eastern European wh.o.r.e. That's what you look like.'

'What do you know about wh.o.r.es?'

'I know a great deal about wh.o.r.es.'

Call me prudish, call me prim, call me any synonym you like, but I don't like people talking that way. I really didn't like it when you talked that way. I didn't mind you being pathetic, but this wasn't acceptable.